


green room

by sinead



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinead/pseuds/sinead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance and Chris get to tell the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	green room

  


Live television. Live fucking television, which meant there was no way to edit out the mistakes, or do it over, or even to say, politely and squashingly, "pardon me?" when Larry asked a question you really didn't want to answer. He was a journalist, or at least had pretensions to being one. For all that he had the reputation of lobbing softballs in his interviews, it still wasn't quite like talking to Jay Leno or Carson Daly. That understanding was missing. That unspoken, _ appear on my show and get me ratings and I'll make you look good because we're all entertainers_ understanding. Because they all had questions they didn't want to answer, didn't they? Questions about Britney, and lawsuits, and crazy fans, and _are you dating anyone_. Questions about "Digital Getdown", that could still cause JC to blush and stammer.

"You can write the damn song, but you can't come up with a coherent explanation as to why?" Chris asked snappishly, but Chris was especially volatile these days, these post-Dani days, and everyone was cutting him lots of slack, so JC didn't snap back. Lance looked across the green room at Chris. Half an hour to show time. _Are you dating anyone?_

There'd been a rumor. Their PR office had gotten a phone call, a heads-up from some sympathetic or meddling insider, which Catherine said "was nothing to worry about, really", but she'd looked worried anyway. She was new, new enough that these kinds of phone calls still unnerved her, made her want to fix it, somehow, to take care of it, to make sure every question that might be asked them was under her careful control. Lance could have told her there was nothing to fix. Lance could have reassured her, Larry King isn't going to out me on national television. Probably.

Lance could also have said he didn't care anymore; let it come, let it happen, except that wasn't one hundred percent true. Maybe only ninety percent, and it would have scared the others, anyway. They all knew first hand those dangerous impulses to tell the truth. Recently, they had to worry about them every time Chris opened his mouth in an interview.

"How are things going for you these days?" the editor of Teen People had asked him last week.

"Shitty," Chris had replied.

Chris had never cared too much about the finer points of _the image_, but they relied on Lance for his discretion. Saying he didn't care anymore would also have given Catherine a heart attack, which Lance really didn't want to do, because she was fairly nice, and she worried on their behalf, even if it was partly worry about keeping her job and it resulted in her trying to micromanage every word that came out of their mouths. Micromanage. That was a Catherine word, a Wharton School word. It didn't actually describe the real experience, Lance thought wearily. The real experience, of course, was lying. Say the right words, and everyone could be lulled into ignoring your actions, if you were a famous pop star.

No, Lance thought. No, I'm not dating anyone. The funny thing, the _ironic_ thing was that it was the truth.

Justin was murmuring into his cell phone, probably getting or giving reassurance to Brit. JC was ostensibly reading a magazine, but he was humming to himself, which meant he was tense, and not really seeing the words. Joey was sampling the green room fruit platter. Of all of them, he was the least nervous. In their brief initial meeting with Larry, the whole Brooklyn connection had already been established--what _was_ it about Brooklyn that inspired such devotion among her sons, anyway?--but that wasn't why Joey was contentedly eating grapes. Because he took people as they came, he pretty much expected the same treatment in return, and surprisingly enough, he often got it. Joey was rarely flustered in an interview.

Chris was sitting, bouncing his knee and gnawing on his lower lip. Catherine was beside him, murmuring to him, "Try to bring up the fight in the bar before he does. That way, you'll have a little more control over the questions." Lance thought he looked impatient with this last minute hand-holding, but he merely nodded and glanced up. Lance wasn't able to school his expression into something neutral in time, and Chris gave him a little lopsided smile and shrugged. When Catherine got up, Lance went over and crouched by Chris' chair, but couldn't think of anything more eloquent to say than, "it'll be okay."

"Fuck 'em," Chris said. He reached for Lance's hand, and turned it over to inspect the palm closely. "How's this doing?" The cut was fading to a red line. If it left a scar, it would end up being almost invisible. Lance could feel Chris' breath on his skin.

"It's fine, it's nothing," he said. He couldn't remember being cut. He vaguely remembered the guy with the weird, hostile expression who had been standing at the bar. He clearly remembered watching Chris slam three shots of tequila with a weird expression of his own, the one he had pretty much been wearing for the previous six weeks. He gasped after the last one went down. Lance had put a hand on his arm.

"Easy," he said gently, feeling the hard thrumming shape of Chris' forearm beneath the black sleeve. He's shaking, Lance thought. Chris opened his mouth to speak.

"Lance--" was as far as he got.

Lance remembered being jostled, and the voice that snarled, "watch it, faggot." He remembered eyes like pools of black ink in Chris' white face, the rage coming off of him as visible as smoke off of dry ice. For a moment, everything had seemed frozen, and then Lance thought "oh no", but before he could speak, Chris was moving, and the guy's head was rocking back as Chris hit him in the face. There had been sounds, the damp crunch of the blows, and a sound Lance later realized must have been breaking glass. He had seen something shiny in the guy's hand, heading for Chris' eyes. Instinctively, Lance put his own hand out.

No, he couldn't remember that first hot, slicing pain. He remembered the shocking sight of his own blood, and a woman's voice screaming. It seemed to bring everything to a standstill.

The club manager, with an eye to not alienating famous clients, had managed to muzzle his employees. Someone had persuaded the guy that charging Chris with assault was not worth a counter-charge of assault with a weapon. Lance's injury wasn't serious. In the end, a vague item about the fight had made the New York Post--"'Nsync's Kirkpatrick Reported Involved In Nightclub Brawl"--but there had been no mention of why it started.

Now Lance wanted to lift his hand and thread it through Chris' hair, and pull him into his chest, holding him wrapped up there, protected from interviewers, and stupid drunks in bars, and his own quixotic impulses. He closed his eyes against the vividness of the image and swallowed. When he opened them, Chris was looking at him.

"You okay? I mean," he hesitated, then said, "Will you be alright, out there?"

Lance felt a surge of irritation, and knew that it wasn't fair, and also knew it wasn't because of pre-show nerves. It was because he wanted to keep imagining the feeling of his arms around Chris, and he couldn't, he really couldn't, he had to stop. "I wish everyone would quit worrying that I'm going to fuck this up," he said shortly, not looking at Chris. There was a heavy silence. He raised his eyes reluctantly to Chris' face, which was pale. His eyes had a sudden suspicious sheen.

"That's not," he whispered roughly. "I didn't mean it that way." He was still holding Lance's hand. The green room was abruptly quiet around them. Lance pulled his hand away and stood up. Without making eye contact with anyone, he said quietly, "I'm going to the bathroom." As he left, he caught a glimpse of JC's sympathetic face.

Alone in the bathroom, he opened and closed his hand, the one Chris had been holding. Deliberately, he went to the sink and turned on the cold water and thrust his hand under the stream. As he held it there, he heard the door swing open behind him.

"What's up," Chris said quietly.

Lance didn't answer at first, just slowly dried his hands on a paper towel. As he tossed it in the trash, he turned and said, "What were you thinking that night?"

Chris didn't flinch. "I was mad at the fucker. When he said that to you, it made me mad."

"He broke that glass after you hit him," Lance said.

"Yeah, I guess."

"There's been some asshole calling me 'fag' since I was thirteen, Chris." Chris shook his head stubbornly, but Lance kept going. "He was going to cut your eyes." Your beautiful eyes, Lance thought, but didn't say it.

"So instead, he cut your hand," Chris said angrily.

"That's not the point--"

"I can't let that shit go, Lance. It's not the way I'm made." Then Chris came closer, and took Lance's hand again. Lifted it toward his face.

"Your beautiful hand," he whispered. And he tipped his head and kissed Lance's palm. Against Lance's skin, still cold from the water, Chris' lips felt very warm. Lance felt a faint brush of something that might have been Chris' tongue. His mouth was moving, sliding across the inside of Lance's wrist, touching the links of his bracelet. He pulled, urging Lance's hand to the back of his own head, reaching his other hand out to touch Lance's face, trailing a finger down his neck. The light in the bathroom took on a curious swimming quality before Lance closed his eyes.

Against his mouth, Chris' lips still felt warm. Lance could feel fingers sliding into his hair, tugging slightly, and when he opened his mouth, he felt his whole body bloom with sensation. Chris' tongue in his mouth, Chris' thigh pressed between his. The cold tile of the bathroom wall against his back. The scar on his palm tingling as he ran his hands down Chris' shoulders and up under his jacket, feeling for the hem of his shirt. Breathy pants in his ear as Lance touched soft skin, and Chris pulled his mouth away from their kiss to whisper, "want you. want you." His hips began to beat a slow, maddening tattoo against Lance's cock. He pressed his open mouth to Lance's throat.

Rebound fuck, thought Lance vaguely. Then, clear and sharp came the thought, I don't care. As if he heard, and needed to answer, Chris was whispering more words against his lips.

"Wanted you for so long." Lance sank into his mouth, into the fierce hot demand of it, and the slow slide of Chris' body against his. As Chris was trying to unbutton his shirt with shaking hands, a tinny voice blared from the ceiling, startling them both badly.

_"Ten minutes to air."_

They sprang apart. Lance could feel his heart hammering and his knees wobble with the suck and ebb of adrenaline in his veins. Chris looked as wild as he felt. They stared at one another.

"Do you want to get together after the show?" Chris said abruptly.

"Yeah." The gravelly remnant of desire was obvious in Lance's voice, and he cleared his throat. "I do." It seemed wildly unlikely that it could be as simple as that, that he could have this just for the asking. Larry might even say, _so, what are you doing after the show, Lance?_ and he could honestly reply, _I'm getting together with Chris_. Perhaps this too was the way Chris was made; he was a boy who believed that the truth lay in action. He believed in trembling hands, and laboring breath, and the way Lance's eyes dropped to his crotch and jerked up to linger on his face. He pulled Lance into his arms and kissed him again.

"Alright, then," he said, and Lance believed him.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite moments from Larry King's interview with *NSYNC went approximately as follows:
> 
> [Larry King] So, what about the rest of you? (turning to Lance) Are you dating anyone?
> 
> [Chris] Lance is dating me.
> 
> \--and thus are a thousand stories born.
> 
> (Thanks to Julad, who provided some kick-ass suggestions when I was stuck.)


End file.
